Do you ever feel a bit dim? For example, you read something that you know is important… and one year later finally get it! This happened when Jim Connolly answered my question about internet business models last September.

Different Between Tailored Marketing and Generic Marketing

To put things in context, I asked him about passive income streams. Did he have any examples he could share? Maybe I can learn something or, who knows, adapt them for own blogs.

Jim had another take on it:

‘The key is to avoid generic marketing advice from courses, books and gurus.

It’s not about channels. It’s about tailored marketing.”

Read that again.

It’s about ‘tailored marketing’.

Why?

…as soon as you copy the generic routes to “passive income success” touted in programs, books and blogs by gurus, you’re guaranteed to fail.

Whatever you decide to do, don’t waste a penny or your time on anything that wasn’t designed specifically for you.

YOUR plan needs to be based on YOUR resources, YOUR targets, and YOUR approach to business.

You can read Jim’s blog post here.

Different Between Frameworks and Blueprints

As someone who has shelled out on many courses, webinars, and ebooks this made me look at things slightly different.

• What returns do I get from paid webinars?
• What did I learn from conferences that I didn’t know before?
• What do I get from reading X number of blogs in my Google Reader?
• Maybe you’ve had the same thoughts. Are gurus worth it?

The point isn’t to bash internet gurus. Far from it. They all have their place.

People like Seth (especially Permission Marketing), Chris Brogan (especially his social media ecosystem concept), and Dosh Dosh (no longer with us, alas) have all shaped my internet business.

The salient point is that I study gurus who offer frameworks, not blueprints.

What’s the difference?

Frameworks give you building blocks. You have to figure out which to use, where to use them, and how to design the business. This echoes Jim’s advice. It’s based on what you have at your disposal right now.

Blueprints offer a path, a user manual to success. And here we need to be careful.

Why?

• Because they have connections you don’t. And maybe never will
• Because they went to colleges/companies you didn’t and
• Because they have debts, liabilities, payments etc you don’t have

Remember, as you’re starting from a different place, the results will differ.

It’s a bit like two cooks using different ingredients, different ovens, and serving different customers. Will the results be the same?

Takeaway

Does this mean gurus are a waste of time? No. Far from it.

But rather than seeing them as an immediate solution to your situation, consider them as a finger pointing in the right direction.

See the difference?

Last week we share some free ebooks on Social Media. Here are some more I found. Most are PDFs and can be read offline.

14 Free eBooks about Social Media

1. Amber Naslund – Getting a Foothold in Social Media
2. Brian Solis – The Essential Guide to Social Media
3. Chris Brogan - Social Media and Network Starting Points
4. MarketingApple.com – Marketing Apple
5. Peter Pixel – Good Usability
6. Amber Naslund. – The Social Media Starter Kit
7. Philip Sheldrake – The Social Web Analytics ebook
8. Positioning Strategy – The New Rules of Business Blogs
9. Amber Naslund – Social Media Time Management
10. PRSA – Blogs & Social Media
11. SEOBook – Google Adwords Secrets
12. Brian Solis -The Art of Listening and Engagement Through Social Media
13. Skellie – The Simple Web: A Philosophy for Getting What You Want
14. US Air Force Public Affairs Agency – New Media and the Air Force

Other Free eBooks?

If you know of other free books, please add them below.

An article marketing plan (e.g. Microsoft Word/Excel template) will help increase your traffic as it gives you a framework for writing your blog posts and scheduling your posts in advance. If you plan to blog for a living or want to earn money blogging part-time, then you need to spend some time creating super low-tech workflow that lets you write as efficiently as possible. That makes sense, right?

Why use an Article Marketing Schedule?

For example, if you run five different blogs, you will need system to keep on top of your writing and ensure that your blogs are updated on time. Otherwise, you may find that you work on one blog, then stop. Work on the next blog, and then stop to work on the next… This stop/start approach will undermine your efforts and remove all the good work you’ve put in.

Download your Article Marketing Schedule Template here.

How to Organize your Blog Writing Schedule

The simplest way to do this is use a simple Microsoft Word or Excel template. Then create columns for the

• Article Title – enter the working title for your article. This may change as you revise the blog post.
• Blog address – enter the address where you will post the article. This gives you a clearer picture of where you need to focus and the sites that need most attention.
• Keywords – enter three to five keywords that you want to use in the Title, Meta tags and in the URL. One tip is to use variations of keywords rather than repeating the same word all the time.
• Start Date – enter the date when you need to start writing the first draft.
• End Date – enter the date when you complete the post and get it online. The more you use an Editorial Calendar for your blog, the more accurate you will be in estimating how long it takes to write multiple articles.
• Status – enter Draft, Revise or Final depending on the status of the article. This is a nice way to see where you are with your overall blogging activities. It also gives you a snapshot of where there are gaps in your writing and the blogs that need more attention.

Download Article Marketing Schedule

To get you started, I’ve created this Article Marketing Schedule in Microsoft Word.

Download your Article Marketing Schedule Template here.

This template is Creative Commons and can be shared with your colleagues and fellow bloggers. There is no email required to download this file!

Takeaway: Create a Writing Workflow

The critical point is to develop a system that lets you focus more on writing and spend less time on other non-writing tasks. Creating a simple set of Microsoft Word/Excel files that simplify your workflow will make a huge difference in the long run.

My suggestion is to use this as a starting point for your blog writing and modify it where you need.

What do you think?

PS – if you want the Microsoft Excel version, drop me a line.

One of the dilemmas when using email is deciding if you should send the entire blog post in the email or just an extract. I do both on different sites as my readers have different preferences. Recently, I moved to AWeber as it lets me send extracts (teasers) via email and then encourage them to visit the website. Of course, you can also send the full email to the website as we’ll show next.

Send Entire or Extract Blog Posts to Newsletters?

One of the hidden features in AWeber is the ability to send an excerpt of the blog post to an email newsletter or send the entire email to your blog.

Like we said, one of the nice features of AWeber is the ability to connect your emails to your blog. In other words, every time you send out an email, it becomes a blog post.

And you can turn it around.

Every blog post can be sent out as an email!

In order to have all content shown in your email newsletter, make these changes:

1. Log into AWeber
2. Open your blog newsletter template
3. Find the string {!rss_item_description}
4. Replace it with {!rss_item_content}
5. Save it.

Aweber will now send out the entire blog post to your email subscribers.

This is ideal if you want to ‘tease’ readers into visiting your site, which is ideal if you want to get them to take action on your site, for example, buy products from your webstore or to increase the traffic to the site.

Remember to Test

The {!rss_item_content} merges the HTML and images from your blog post into the newsletter. Make sure to test your newsletter to make sure the HTML displays correctly in Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail and other email clients.

Note: Aweber lets you send out test emails that don’t appear on the blog.

Difference Between AWeber and Feedburner?

They are both great in their own ways. I use Feedburner for sites where I want to keep things simple, reduce costs and automate the publishing process.

But when you want more advanced features, such as emails to be blog posts blog posts to be emails, then sign up for the trial version of AWeber and see how it works.

For me, it’s made a huge difference with email marketing campaigns as it helps with upselling, split testing, and sending out special offers to my subscribers that don’t appear on the blog. That element of exclusivity really helps when you’re nurturing your customers.

What other tools let you do this? Maybe there are ways to do this with Feedburner that I’m not aware of. Let me know if you have any ideas.

And I guess this brings us back to the question: should you send full or partial blog posts to your email newsletters?

In the last sixteen years, email has helped me win more business than any other tool. It’s turned cautious readers into enthusiastic buyers. It’s brought in prospective customers from the edge and driven repeat traffic to the money pages. Here are some of the mistakes I’ve made and how to get around them.

Emails Mistakes To Avoid

One of the dilemmas for web marketers is how to know what their customers really want. Email is one of the best ways to form a strong relationship with your readers.

It’s an inexact science. Everyone has an opinion. Here are some of mine!

1. Plain Text v HTML

Some of world’s biggest web marketers send out plan text emails. John Chow and Yaro Starak are two good examples. I’ve experimented with this format and have to say that it does seem to work, well, for certain types of content.

If your readers are after tutorials, for example, plain text will be fine. If it’s a Fashion newsletter or something up-market, then a splash of color is in order.

Plain text is also very powerful as the reader is ‘forced’ to read the text. Maybe guided is a better word but you get the idea. There’s nothing to distract them. Click-throughs can be very high if you use plain text with a single call to action.

2. Size Matters… kinda

The word count of your emails, and possibly the number of images, may also affect how readers respond. Some prefer short, snappy emails. Think Seth Godin’s pithy observations.

Others prefer long, detailed articles. ProBlogger and CopyBlogger are both, on average, 800-1000 words per post.

Some of this depends on your readership. If you’re sending 3 more emails per week, they may prefer short posts and/or abstracts.

But not always…

3. Use Abstracts Rather Than Full Post

One way to address this is to offer an abstract, say twenty words and then a link to the site.

• The advantage is that you get them to the site where they can add comments, interact and/or buy something.
• The disadvantage is that they may not be curious enough to click-thru, have web access at their work office, or feel that you’re trying to trick them into having to visit their site.

I give the full feed in my emails. I don’t want people to feel short-changed in any way.

4. No Endorsements or Testimonials

Use testimonials as social proof that others enjoy your newsletter. Get the right balance here with the wording and photos. Text that sounds too polished and flattering will make the readers suspicious.

Use the real words folks have sent you (a few typos never hurt) to give it that authentic sound. Try to avoid re-writing what they said.

If you don’t have testimonials for your newsletter, see if your current blog readers have favorable things to say about the site and then refer to this.

5. Hi, {Firstname}, we got your email!

Is there anything worse than a personalized email that’s gone berserk? If you’re going to use it – I don’t – be careful and test first. Most email software companies will have videos no how to do this right.

6. Not Testing Subject lines

Ever wonder how your email looked in different browsers?

Instead of setting up accounts on Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook, use this free tool to see how your subject line will look. It also shows how it will look on mobile devices. Great way to test your subject before you send it out.

Remember, if people don’t like your subject line, the email doesn’t get read.

All the effort you’ve put into writing the article, finding the right image, creating links and so on… all wasted. Test and test again until you see which subject lines work the best. See http://litmusapp.com/resources/subject-line-checker

Tip: 5 words works best for me, especially if there is some call to action or pressure put on the reader to click Open.

7. Buying Email Lists

You can buy emails links if you’re mad enough but why would you? It’s about as effective as walking down the high-street with a megaphone talking about your blog. Think anyone will buy?

Instead, learn as much as you can about email list building, write content the folks want to read, and test. I use the Reports tools in Aweber to see where I’m making progress and what needs to be refined. Feedburner is fine for broadcasting for your can’t dig down segment the lists, schedule emails or broadcast followups.

If you’re serious about using email to drive sales, invest in a Aweber or Constant Contact. I’ve also heard good things about MailChimp.

8. Keep It Consistent

Even if someone leaves your company, there’s an argument for keeping the email address active if that person has a large readership. Think twice about changing the name in the From field as you may confuse the readers and/or give them a reason to unsubscribe.

Don’t change a winning team!

9. CAN-SPAM Compliance

‘Real’ companies include their physical address at the footer of their email. I know this can be made up but most companies do comply with the Can-Spam Act and add their contact details in the footer. They also make it easy for you to unsubscribe.
If you don’t include this in the email, aside from the legal obligation, it shows your subscribers that you have a legitimate identity and that can phone you if there is a problem. Remember to add the country code suffix as well.

10. Email Schedule. What Email Schedule?

Create a schedule and then stick to it. This ‘trains’ your readers to expect your emails. I look forward to certain emails during the week and make time to read them. Your readers are probably the same.

Also, don’t chop and change the schedule. Keep to the same schedule for at least a month. Don’t push too hard or be over-ambitious. Try to get one out per week. If you can manage that for a week, try then and so on…

11. Don’t Send on Wednesday

Choose the best day to send the emails based on YOUR stats.

9 out of 10 web marketers will tell you that Wednesday (or is it Thursday now?) is the best day to send emails. Their ‘research’ shows it.

Well, if they all use that day, you choose another.

Makes sense, right.

Also, think of your readers. If you’re sending out an Entertainment email, maybe Friday lunchtime is that best so they can plan their week.
Sunday also works for me as people have time to browse and aren’t in a hurry.

12. Remove Deadwood

If they haven’t read your emails for six months, delete them.

Why?

Different reasons. One is that large ISP counts the number of bounced emails (e.g. From dormant accounts) and may punish you if your negative rating gets beyond a certain level.

Again,  my buddy Aweber has tools that let you do this.

13. Not Testing Before Sending

One of the advantages of Aweber is that I can sent test emails to different accounts before I sent it out.

It sounds like a small thing but it lets me see what the email will look like from the reader’s perspective.

Sometimes I catch a typo. Other times I look at it and see it needs to be revised. The tone doesn’t feel right or there are too many links.
Testing helps with this.

You don’t get a second chance with first impressions.

14. Use Special Reports

Let’s say you have a site about Travel. Send out special issues every quarter with tons on info getting your readers ready for special events. Focus on a single issue, say traveling to Asia for the first time. Include a link to a PDF version of the ‘report’ so they can keep it with them and/or share with friends.

Sprinkle in some links to your money pages or affiliate sites.

15. Use Follow-ups To Sell Longtail Products

Create a list for each type of class you offer (Yoga for Strength, Qigong and so on). When members enroll at the beginning of each new rotation, ask them to sign up for that list.

With a follow-up series for each list, you can prepare students with tips they can use to succeed that particular discipline, clothing suggestions, links to buy any special equipment they’ll need and a short biography of their instructor

Here’s an idea. Say you run a site about Finance. Follow up after 5 days and tell the new readers that you have the 5 part free newsletter about Personal Finance. Send them a link to a sample issue. If they like than – and take the course – send them another email towards the end offering another free course about Buying Shares For the First Time.

You get the idea. Don’t let your list sit there. Use it as much as you can. If the quality is good, no one will complain.

Then sprinkle some links into the newsletters that go to your money pages or affiliate sites.

16. Use Your Email Signature, Business Card and Stationery

My email address includes links to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and my email account. I also add a PS for sales, discounts, and special offers that we run from time to time. And it’s very effective.

Over the course of the week, I’ll email several 100 people. Some days I have 200 emails in my inbox when I arrive. Many of these are getting in touch with me for the first time.

Adding my contact details and social media sites to the email, makes it one step easier for them to contact me. It takes one minute to setup but can be very effective in the long term.

PS – always use a PS. We all tend to scan down to the end of a document, report, or email from habit. Add a little ‘linkbait’ there and some will take a nibble.

Don’t forget to add your email to your stationery; you never know where it ends up. Business cards are the same, especially if you make them creative.

17. Impossible to Recognize “From” Names

My ISP sends me emails from nobody@nameofisp.com. This isn’t the best way to engage with your  customers. Personalize the email’s From field so it shows a real name.

As my name Ivan isn’t that common, I use it where-ever I can. It stands out from others and helps reader remember my posts.

Even if you’re a one-person company, you can create names for different functions in your business.

Rather that everything going to info@, create Sally, Tom, Stacy, Dion… and use these for your Sales, Customer Support, Finance emails.

You’d be surprised how many small companies use this tactic to big themselves up!

Are You Making These Mistakes With Your Emails?

Those are some of the ways you can get it wrong with email. I know I have and am still learning. If  I were to nail down three things that really help, I would say:

1. Make the sign-up super simple. Don’t complicate things and get too fancy. Place the web form in the top right of the web page. Use simple words like Sign Up! or Subscribe! Don’t be clever, clever. Include a small benefit in the text near the form, such as free reports, discounts or gifts. Links to previous issues are another way for cautious readers to sample the goods first.
2. Write interesting headings. Study how others do it and write out 20 variations of their headlines. After a while, you’ll get into the right mindset and see how they do it. Like all things it takes practice.
3. Stay in touch. I send out one personal email every month. I just say hello, share some info, maybe giveaway a free book. Something that lets the reader know that I’m not taking them for granted.

That’s it for now.

What else would you add?

ShoeMoney gives you ‘skills to pay the bills.’ According to AdAge, ShoeMoney is now the 5^th highest trafficked web marketing site. Since its launch in 2004, it has grown into a multi-million dollar business. 35,000 daily readers, named Best Affiliate Marketing Blog and ranked in Technorati’s top 50 blogs for three years running. It topped $1million in 2009 and will better this in 2010 thanks to the phenomenally successful Shoe Money System And remember, this digital empire is based in Lincoln, Nebraska, not from Silicon Valley or New York.

Who is Jeremy Schoemaker?

Jeremy Schoemaker is ShoeMoney. Let’s look at his background first and then drill down into how he developed this multi-million dollar empire. Jeremy Schoemaker, 36, grew up in Moline, Illinois. As a child he struggled with poor health, most notably weight issues – he was 300+ pounds at age 14 – something he addressed in many blog posts. His solution to constant teasing and the flak that comes with this was typical Schoemaker/ShoeMoney: ‘work that much harder to be that much better than my competition’.

ShoeMoney Timeline on Google News

ShoeMoney Timeline

Before we look at his business philosophy and marketing strategy, let’s look at how he’s developed his business in this timeline.

• 2003 – Started ShoeMoney.com and expanded his ringtone community company, Next Pimp. The site was originally called googleninja.com. This is where he shares information on his life, web marketing, and new projects, such as The Shoe Money System.
  ShoeMoney.com has a very distinct design, especially the logo which is featured on all ShoeMoney products, marketing and TShirts. The site is 100% free to read. Advertisements were added in 2007.
• 2003 – Discovered Google Adsense. One check for $130,000 (one-month earnings from Google AdSense) is the most linked to pages on his blog. His became ‘famous’ in web terms anyway after this check showed his Google AdSense earnings. This photo launched ShoeMoney into the greater public domain and established him as an authority on affiliate marketing and online subscriptions business models. Detractors argued that the photo was digitally altered (e.g. in PhotoShop) and have went to great lengths to prove that he could not have earning this amount from his site. And they’re right, well, up to a point.
  It seems that ShoeMoney runs multiple sites (e.g. networks of automated sites) which have been fine-tuned for Google Adsense. The sum total of these earnings I assume explains the figure. Personally, I don’t care. Even if he didn’t make that amount, kudos for having the marketing smarts to get it out there.
• 2006 – ShoeMoney, with Aaron Wall, Lee Dodd, and Dave Taylor, started a conference called the Elite Retreat. Limited to 30 people and costs $5,000 per person. In 5 events over 4 years (20 events) it has sold out every event. That’s $100k for twenty days work.
• 2007 – With business partner, David Dellanave, launched AuctionAds, an eBay affiliate marketing service that serves eBay auction ads on contextually relevant sites. It won multiple awards and within four months, marketing company Media Whiz purchased a majority stake in it. ShoeMoney says that it made a lot of people a lot of money and “I risked a ton of my own money to start this network and never made a dime off of it until we sold it to Media Whiz.” When sold, it had 25,000 active publishers generating over $2,000,000 a month in revenue. That’s $24 million per year.
• 2008 Launched ShoeMoney Tools – An advanced suite of PPC (Pay Per Click) and SEO tools. Clients include Intel, Microsoft, MTV and Google
• 2008 Launched Shoemoneyx.com — Free 12 week course on internet marketing. This is excellent and I recommend you try it out.
• 2009 Launched The ShoeMoney System — Step by step guide on making money every which way on the internet. This site is targeted at those who want to make money online, not from low-paying blogging activities, but using their site as a platform to run a real web business. There is some overlap with Yaro Starak blog Mastermind system.
• 2009-2010 – ShoeMoney.com generated $1 million dollars from multiple income streams.

How ShoeMoney Really Got Started

Let’s step back a minute and see how he went from a small town in Nebraska to top of the pile.

In 1987, his mother bought him an Apple computer. That was it. From there on he was hooked. Fast forward to 1995 and he landed his first IT job at a local Internet Service Provider. He made one dollar more than he had made in Sears. The pay was irrelevant. This was a chance to work – every day & all day – with all types of technologies.

At the ISP he was thrown in at the deep-end and soon learnt how to use servers, program systems, and built websites. Then, while returning to college, he started to get calls from companies wanting to advertise on his sites. The penny dropped! He could make money doing when he loved.

What ‘s important to note here is that like many successful IT entrepreneurs, for example, Bill Gates, Schoemaker knows how things work ‘under the hood’. John Chow, a business associate of Schoemaker, is similar. Instead of getting other people to teach them, they make the deep dives into the technology, figure out how it works and then get people to teach them how it works. Essentially, that’s it.

‘But many people use AdSense and don’t make a penny’

That’s right, but reading through their sites and you’ll see that their knowledge of PPC, AdSense, Banner Advertising and other monetization strategies is backed up with deep technical knowledge. Web marketers looking for the latest hack, trick, or insight to squeeze the most from AdSense (as an example) read ShoeMoney, John Chow and Neil Patel as they show how they do it.

And, of course, when you see how they do it, you come back for more. This article, for example, shows how to increase AdSense/Adwords click throughs rates with a very clever trick.

Look at the comments under this article and you’ll see why ShoeMoney is so highly-valued. These readers are all experienced web marketers and developers but this Google Adwords trick was totally new to them. High impact articles like this generate incredible traffic, backlinks, live long on the web, and drive subscription rates through the roof.

‘How does this help me?’

#1 Takeaway: instead of writing content that has been discussed 1000 times elsewhere (in some shape or form) create something that really makes your readers go WOW!

This will have a huge impact on your subscription rates and drive repeat traffic to your site, especially if you network on DIGG, StumbleUpon or Facebook. Follow Seth Godin’s suggestion: develop content that is remarkable – something that others can remark on. If it’s not worth remarking on, well…

Ok, back to ShoeMoney…

The dotcom crash in 2002-2003 hit his business very hard wiping out most of his savings. At 28, he was 420 lbs, $50k in debt, and struggling for direction. Luckily, he met his future wife, who, in his own words, ‘showed me that you can get whatever you want if you are willing to work for it.’

#2 Takeaway: ShoeMoney’s business model at this point was based on Google Adwords and other types of advertising. While these business models can be lucrative in boom times, when the economy takes a hit, advertising budgets get cut almost immediately. My reading of this is that when ShoeMoney saw how fragile the advertising business model was, he started to look at other revenue streams. This has come to fruition in the runaway success that is The Shoe Money System

ShoeMoney’s Philosophy & The Coke Theory

His business philosophy centers on three key areas:

1. Embrace New Trends & Exploit Opportunities

His ‘Coke Theory’ best sums up his approach. He gives this example, ‘SMG entered the ring tone market early, captured traffic and has monetized it. Finding angles and exploiting them for profit is a key aspect of SMG. Maximum and diverse revenue streams are built on fairly narrow marketing concepts that are then diversified.’

With the ‘The Coke Theory’, you take an existing product, give it a new twist and then find ways to leverage its position to generate parallel, non-competitive income streams. It’s the same approach Coke use with Diet Coke, Cherry Coke, Coke Zero – at the end of the day, it’s just Coke.

How you position the product – and create insatiable demand for its new features – is what matters.

2. Focus On Core Strengths

ShoeMoney’s focus is on product development, marketing and site design in that order. Unlike others who’ve invested in expensive site designs (and re-designs) first, he ‘built his sites on those natural marketing principles while running the backend. Web design was a secondary skill, so he focused on the marketing of the sites, which then built revenue.’

Once these were running successfully, he invested in a professional looking web design.

Since then he has launched other sites all of whom ‘expand their income potential by building a network of sites centered on a central theme.’

3. Small Changes Create Big Revenue

ShoeMoney loves to experiment and this comes through in many articles. The purpose here is to look for ways to fine-tune small areas which, when optimized, generate higher returns.

‘Once the traffic is there, small changes in design and structure can make big changes in revenue. Ad placement, recurring subscriptions and affiliate marketing can add value to a site without disrupting the base of revenue.’

What he’s doing here is classic process improvement. He (and his team) look at areas of the site, make adjustments, perform split tests, and then compare the results. Most of us don’t reach our goals as we don’t do the comparisons, testing and analysis. So, for example, while your AdSense campaigns may be ‘successful’, the hard data isn’t there to refine the campaigns. If you’re interested into this type of in depth analysis, get his free newsletter. And, if that impresses you (and it will!) try out the ShoeMoney system.

Remember the ‘Coke Theory’

He’s not shy about discussing his turkeys (i.e. sites that bombed). See My Top 10 Worst Ideas To Make Money

which, of course, makes him (and his business) more human. After all, most of us have up and downs, so seeing his failures helps us relate to him.

#3 Takeaway: Why ShoeMoney talks about his business failures

He does this for several reasons.

1. You can see his progression over the years. He’s not a flight-by-night operator. He’s here for the long haul. Knowing this, you feel that bit more comfortable and more likely to sign up. Compare this to sites where the About Us page is not about anyone, just generic marketing guff.
2. You empathize with him. Why? Because you’ve been there too. Maybe you’re from a place like Nebraska, have been over-weight, had health issues, or some other disadvantage. Some of this is psychological. If you had a choice between buying from someone you can relate to or some slick perma-tanned type with an achingly perfect lifestyle…
3. We all root for the under-dog.
4. We root for the under-dog because, at some point in your life, you’ve been the under-dog and know what it takes to overcome these obstacles. Maybe you also feel that if he can overcome these obstacles (e.g. poor health), then you can and it encourages you to frame your own efforts.

Why You Should Write The Story of Your Life

Before I forget. Yaro Starak suggests that you write a very detailed life story (his is 5 very long pages) so your readers (and prospective customers) can enter into your world and really connect with you. You can read his life story here.

• John Chow’s life story
• Neil Patel’s (Quick Sprout) life story
• Yaro Starak’s life story

I was skeptical about this until I wrote my own. It’s a very liberating thing to do – and remember, you don’t have to publish it — and based on the emails I’ve received, it does make a difference. Try it.

Target Audience

From a marketing perspective, ShoeMoney.com is an interesting mix. Scanning through the comments on his blog/forum, his followers are made up of newbies (asking how do I type questions) and experienced web marketers looking for very detailed tactics, seo hacks and marketing strategies. While he caters to both, the long-term fans are the hard core marketers & developers than he offers that most value to. These offer detailed information on Pay Per Click (PPC), Click Through Rates (CTR), advertising strategies, and Split Testing.

What You Can Learn From The ShoeMoney Brand

If you’ve seen the T Shirt, you’ll recognize the brand. ShoeMoney has invested in developed a strong brand, great logo with nice clean artwork, and some very sharp packaging. Look at the polished quality you see in his videos here and compare it to most other blog sites that comes to mind. Don’t be fooled by the ‘Home Grown in Lincoln, NE’ folksy feel. ShoeMoney and his team work hard to make this look easy.

Next Steps

The The Shoe Money System should keep him busy for this year. Reading this article on why he chose Clickbank, it’s clear that this was a major investment of his time and the focus this year will be in developing this further.

New Product Launches – Brian Clark (CopyBlogger) released the very successful Thesis Theme last year. Part of the success was due to the select band of A List Blogger recommending this very slick WordPress Theme and pushing it in their marketing campaigns. Chris Brogan has had it on his home page since it started. Others have drip-fed the recommendations to readers since launch.

For ShoeMoney, linking up with fellow web marketers in his space, for example, John Chow, may be on the cards. Both of these are high-trafficked sites with similar audience profiles and demographics. John Chow’s revenue streams are mostly based on advertising (which he’s very successful at) so there may be tools that compliment his and ShoeMoney’s readers.

Books – I don’t see why he won’t publish a book as he has the traffic and following. Most of his peers, such as Chris Brogan, Brian Solis and Darren Rowse have done so with great success. I’d assume this is in the pipeline.

However, one reason he may not do this (for now) is that it could cannabilize his ShoeMoney site and distract prospect customers from signing up. ‘Well, I just get the book and then see…’ Saying that, specialist book, such as ‘Facebook Advertising Models’ might find an audience as this micro-niche has very little quality books or blog on it to date.

If you know of some, please add them below.

Conclusion

That’s how he does it.

What are the key points for you to note about ShoeMoney’s site? If you’re considering developing a real web business, something more than just a blog with AdSense, then consider the following points:

• Product Development – make this central to your business strategy. Developing a suite of tools insulates you from the ever-changing fortunes (and budgets) that undermine advertising-based models.
• Brand Development – invest X percentage in creating a memorable brand that works both online and offline. The T Shirts are a good example of how you can cross the divide between off and online. They work on pretty girls, geeks and cute puppies. ShoeMoney has developed a cult following of sorts; his site is slightly counter-culture, geeky (see his Theme Song competition) and not trying to please the mainstream.
• Engagement – ShoeMoney writes most of the articles on his site. But, unlike other high profile bloggers, he engages with his readers most every day on the blog and in the forum. He’s posted over 4000 comments in the forums. The rewards are obvious. He has developed a rabid fan-base (not actually rabid, of course) who follow him across all Social Media networks. His YouTube page has 745,583 views and 10,000 subscribers.
• Business v Blog – ShoeMoney runs a web business. It’s not a blog. And he’s been at it for 6 years. I need to stress this as you could be forgiven for thinking this is a successful blog with a few cute tools thrown in. It’s not a blog. This is a real business, with real employees, offices, and a defined business strategy. The blog is the axis around which the business is built – but it’s important to see the difference.
• Your Story – Share your story. Everyone’s story is interesting. Read mine. Yours is just as interesting. It’s the one thing people can’t take away from you. AND it’s your one true USP. Add a link to your story below. I promise to read it!

What I’ve learnt.

I didn’t ‘get’ ShoeMoney until I stopped thinking of myself as a part-time blogger and decided that I wanted to run my own web business. That was the turning point. I wanted to run my business, reap the rewards of my own efforts and enjoy my life. Something I knew I would never feel working 9-5 for someone else.

Sound familiar? Do you feel the same way?  If you do, then look at his site from a business perspective.

Ask yourself:

• Why did he build these products?
• What pricing strategy has he adopted? Why does he charge X for his tools but X for his courses?
• Could I develop elite conferences? For example, get ten people in a room at 5k per head and discuss advanced Facebook advertising techniques. 5k is peanuts for Fortune 500s. They just want the proof you can deliver.
• How did he build these products?
• Why does he focus on four main products… and not more?
• Who helped him get to this place? Tip: connect with like-minded folks and work together.
• Where did he get this information? Look at the conferences he attended and go there.
• Why is he so successful? Ask him. Visit the site every week, contribute, and then ask a few questions. He’s a people person. He’ll get back to you.
• How can I catch up? Immerse yourself in one technology or Social Media platform. Don’t be a jack of all trades. Make yourself the absolute authority on one subject. Then, you’ll have a guaranteed following.

Go over to ShoeMoney now, bookmark it, get the newsletter and hang out in the forum. You won’t regret it. I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I did writing it. Please let me know what you thought below.

PS – Remember to sign up for our free newsletter and give us a tweet.

This article shows you can increase your Google AdSense earnings by at least 12%. I’ve started to use video-based ads in Adsense (not the text ads) and the results have been impressive.  Split testing showed us that websites with video ads 1) keep viewers onsite longer, 2) increase repeat visits and 3) generate significantly higher AdSense payments than standard plain text ads. In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to setup AdSense video, look at different sizes and formats, test the ads, examine the risks and benefits, and also show you how it increased our earnings.

Why Use Google AdSense Videos Format

The first benefit that videos offer is that they increase Google Adsense payments. In our tests, it increased earnings by more than 12%.  When you’re designing your site layout, consider dropping the text ads and insert one large video ad instead. Do some split testing and check the results. Video ads, or video units as Google likes to call them, lets you enrich your site with relevant video content, which can be embedded in a customizable player.

What is Google AdSense Video?

Google AdSense videos are user initiated ads that run on sites that are part of the Google content network. These ad formats provide users with a rich and engaging advertising experience.

How to get Adsense Videos

Sign in to your AdSense account and open the AdSense Setup tab. Click the video units link and setup up your video unit. Add it to you site and see if it compliments your content.

Risks of Using Video Ad Formats

• Risk #1 – the ads may not compliment your product offerings
• Risk #2 – the ads may be too slow when downloading (not everyone has broadband), which will leave the reader with nothing to see but a blank space, i.e. where the ad should be
• Risk #3 – your AdSense earnings will drop. In our tests, they don’t but your experience may be different.
• Risk #4 – while using video ads should lead to increased sales, especially in the short term, web users may try the video ads and then reject the regular text ads resulting in lower sales.
• Risk #5 – video ads may have a negative impact on your Adsense earnings if do not match your sites look and feel, i.e. the overall color scheme. You can’t control the appearance of video ads as you can with text ads.

Which Video Ad Formats are available?

Video ads are currently available in several ad formats:

• 336 x 280 (Large Rectangle)
• 300 x 250 (Medium Rectangle)
• 250 x 250 (Square)
• 200 x 200 (Small Square)
• 728 x 90 (Leaderboard)
• 120 x 600 (Skyscraper)
• 160 x 600 (Wide Skyscraper)

How to Get Started

To display video ads on your site, make sure you are using one of these supported formats and that you are opted in to image ads for that ad unit. If not, the video option will not be displayed.

How to Enable Image Ads

There are two ways to enable image ads. You can:

1. Enable image and text advertising for all of your pages or
2. Enable image ads for individual pages

Warning - Enabling image ads for individual pages overrides account-wide level selections.

To enable image ads across your account:

1. Sign in to your account at https://www.google.com/adsense
2. Click the My Account tab
3. Click the edit links next to the Ad Type Preference header
4. Select Display text and image ads in all ad units

If you’ve already generated the code, you can change the ad type of your AdSense unit using the ad management feature:

1. Log in to your account at https://www.google.com/adsense
2. Click the AdSense Setup tab.
3. Select the Manage Ads sub-tab.
4. Click Edit settings for the ad unit you’d like to update.
5. Under Format pick your desired ad type.
6. Click Save settings.

Adding YouTube Ads – How it works

If you’ve embedded video from YouTube into your site before, you’ll know what to do. Once you’ve configured the options in Adsense, embed the code as per usual, which display the relevant YouTube content to your site. When selecting content, you can:

1. Choose video categories to target to your site or blog
2. Select content from individual YouTube partners
3. Get video targeted to your site content

Configuration options allow you to blend the YouTube player into your site, customize the color scheme and layout, and choose different player sizes.

How to Test Video Ads on Your Blog

You can test the ad from inside AdSense as follows:

• Enter the URL of a page where this ad unit currently appears to see what the ad unit that you have designed will look like.
• Click Preview on this page
• The test add appears and you can see what it looks like. Pretty impressive!

Tip: If you enter a URL that does not display the code for this ad unit, you will not see any ads in the preview.

Why Can’t I See Video Ads on my Site?

You might not see video ads for a number of reasons.

1. Are you using one of the ad formats that support video ads?
2. Have you opted in to image ads for that ad format - otherwise, your ad unit will not display video ads.
3. Even if you are using supported ad formats, and you are opted in to image ads, video ads may not be targeted to your content for the time being.

Make sure that you are opted in to both text and image ads for these ad units to maximize competition for your ad space.

Split Testing & How Video Increases Your AdSense Earnings

This table shows the AdSense earnings before I added the videos units. Note that 210 clicks generated $77. This is an average for the site performance in March 2010.

Page Impressions – 99,219
Clicks Page 210
CTR – 0.23%
Page eCPM – €0.77
Estimated earnings – €77.14

This is $77 per day across all of March, which is approx $2,310 for the month.

Google AdSense – Search Earnings Without Video ads

This shows the AdSense Search results before I added the videos. Search always pay better. We had 80 clicks which generated $20. Again, this is the average return for the site in March 2010. The eCPM is $26.

Queries – 830
Clicks – 80
CTR – 9.64%
eCPM – €26.51
Estimated earnings – €20.20

This is $20 per day for each day in March, which is approx $600 for the month. Google AdSense earnings for both Page Impressions and Search was $2,900 approx. We also had some small payments from the RSS feeds, but not much.

Google AdSense – Page Impressions Earnings With Video ads

We added the video ads formats across three sites in April. So, these figures are for the first 15 days of the month. Earnings increased by 12%.

Page Impressions (15 days)- 46,986
Clicks Page 118
CTR – 0.24%
Page eCPM – €0.79
Estimated earnings – €43.01

Google AdSense – Search Earnings With Video ads

This shows the AdSense Search results after I added the videos. Its earnings increased by approx 10%.

Queries – 410
Clicks – 39
CTR – 9.84%
eCPM – €27.15
Estimated earnings – €11.88

Conclusions

There are a few things to note. Adding the video formats to Google AdSense made no difference to traffic or at least not yet. We didn’t expect it would. It did increase the earnings though, but about 12%.

1. Page Impression earnings increased by 15%~.
2. Two ads formats performed very well. The first was the Skyscraper video down the right side of the page. However, we also placed Google Ads (with video) embedded inside the article near the top-left. Looking at the heatmaps, it’s clear that visitors ‘enjoyed’ these ads as they clicked on more of them as the month progressed. More testing over the next 6 weeks should give us better feedback.
3. Search earnings increased by 7-10%~. This increase may be related to the close proximity of the video ads to the search box.
4. The Search box is placed in two places on the site. At the top right of the page and also in the Footer. Tests have shown that many users scroll to the end of the page (seeking more information, perhaps) and use this Search box to look for the information rather than scroll back up to the top or hit the Back button.
5. Total earnings for both page impressions and Search increased by 12% approx. Is this good enough? Well, our tests were for a 15-days period in April. As we use video more, our earnings should improve
6. 12% over twelve months should generate an extra $4,000 revenue, which isn’t a bad return for 30 minutes work!

Over to you.

Have you tried the AdSense video formats? If so, what results did you see? If you didn’t, what was the obstacle or issue that stopped you for using video? Let us know below.

PS – Remember to sign up for our free newsletter and give us a Tweet!

Guest article by Shannon Suetos from Resource Nation

When implementing any type of marketing campaign it is wise to first take a step back and decide how to develop your campaign. Many companies are have made the executive decision to go forward with social media—they just aren’t so sure what to do.

Decide where your target audience is engaging

Tackling a social media campaign is much like, if not exactly like a traditional marketing campaigning. The first order of action is to decide where your target audience is. You could have the latest and greatest product or services in the world, but if your core audience isn’t hearing the message there is no benefit to your company.

According to a study conducted by Chitika (a full service online advertising network) broke down the users of Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and Digg.com. This study concluded that:

1. 47% of Twitter users are there for news
2. 52% of Myspace users are there for video games or celebrity/entertainment
3. Digg was spread out between news, tech, and video games

Once you have decided on where your target audience is, you can then go to develop strategies for each site that best fits your company.

Social Tone

The tone of your campaign should be less formal, and more conversational. This is not to say you should throw out all social etiquette—but rather a “business casual” approach. People like talking, especially about themselves, but make sure in your campaign you provide information not only about your services, but current events or even industry news.

Staying away from topics such as religion and politics is a good idea as well—especially if you have many clients from diverse backgrounds. Staying neutral will keep your clients happy and keep you out of hot water.

Define Goals and Measuring Results

Going back to traditional marketing tactics, you need to have a clear objective and measurable goals in your social marketing campaign. Knowing how effective your tactics are can also help you determine your social media ROI and help you decide what tactics work and which don’t for your company.

TwitterFriends determines what they call a conversion quotient, which measures how effective your tweets are on Twitter by looking at how many @ replies you receive as well as re-tweets. The goal of Twitter for business owners should be to get as many @ replies (gains you exposure) and re-tweets (helps get your link/links exposed). Once you know how effective your efforts are you will be able to decide on the best social media outlets for your business.

Another great tool to use has been developed by Email Data Source. This tool will allow marketers to measure Twitter’s impact on the traditional brand marketing perspectives of reach, frequency and effectiveness. This tool seems similar to TwitterFriends in the sense it will help you understand what type of people are re-tweeting you, but explains it in a more traditional marketing way. This is a great tool for marketers who aren’t familiar with Twitter yet.

Getting Creative

This is always the fun part of any marketing campaign. There are many types of tactics out there that are useful for brand awareness and fun for the customer as well. Many companies are using quizzes to do this.

Jennifer Stolte, marketing director for Celestial Seasonings (who implemented a Facebook quiz earlier this year) says, “Social media is something that’s really growing. So many people are online, especially on Facebook, so we’re excited to step into the water.”

Another company doing social media right is Dunkin Donuts. Jesse Greco, founder of PRBreakfast Club says, “It’s the small things that they [Dunkin Donuts] truly excel at. They know how to keep consumers engaged and interested on a daily basis and they have a way of making you feel like you’re special, even as just one of their millions of consumers.”

In the end it is up to you how you are going to run your campaign. The main things to remember is research and use measurable means for your tactics. The world of Internet marketing is evolving fast, and it is up to you to keep up.

Shannon Suetos is a writer based in San Diego, California. She writes extensively for an online resource that provides expert advice on purchasing and outsourcing decisions for small business owners and entrepreneurs such as payroll services & small business services at Resource Nation.

Guest article by Shannon Suetos from Resource Nation

The terms social media and social networking have been tossed around for quite some time now, but businesses are struggling with how to implement these strategies in their budgets.  How much is too much, how much is too little?  There are many factors on how to plan a budget, and the same goes for social media.

A study done by Econsultancy and bigmouthmedia has found that of the, “companies (86%) [they] surveyed plan to spend more money on social media in 2010, and a further 13% are planning to keep the same level of budget.”  With that being said, it seems the biggest struggle for companies is not that they don’t want to spend the money, but they don’t know what to spend it on.

Credit: TW Collins

The good news is many social media outlets are free.  Yes, there are programs you can purchase to help manage your accounts and are necessary for some social networking efforts, but for the most part it’s free to sign up on these sites.

Time

The main cost is how much time you are going to dedicate to your social media campaign.  Someone has to put into action your ideas, and they most likely aren’t going to work for free.  When writing up your budget make sure you take into account the time your employee(s) are going to be dedicating to this new project.

You also need to take into account if you need to hire someone to run your social media efforts.  With the social media industry becoming more popular, there are many people out there claiming to be social media gurus.  There are plenty of quality people in the industry who know what they are doing, but make sure you are getting someone with enough background in social media that makes you comfortable.

Monitoring

Once you have set up who and how much time will be spent on social media, the next step is to decide how you are going to monitor everything.  These analytical tools come in all shapes and sizes and the cost varies from application to application—and in some circumstances are free.

If you are just getting your feet wet, it is a good idea to start small and then grow.  See how effective your efforts are before going full blast.  You need to know where your target audience is engaging.  If your customers are mostly on Twitter and you aren’t there how will they get your message?  Play around with the different social networking sites and figure out which sites are best for your company.

Time will tell

Once you have done some research and dabbled in the different social networking you should be able to get a feel of what tactics work for your company and what don’t.  After you get a better feeling for where your key audience is participating with you, you can then focus your efforts and better know how to manage your time and money.

Shannon Suetos is a writer based in San Diego, California. She writes extensively for an online resource that provides expert advice on purchasing and outsourcing decisions for small business owners and entrepreneurs such as postage meters & postage scales at Resource Nation.

Ask. That’s it. If you want more Facebook fans, ask people to connect. But, here’s Catch 22. You have to ask in the right way. Asking strangers doesn’t work. Here’s how I do it.

Facebook: the Quickest Way To Get More Fans

I run twelve Facebook pages and this seems to work best. To get more followers:

1. Join groups – with less than 1000 members. More than this and you can’t make an impression.
   
2. Join fan pages – same as above. Choose niche or specialist subjects.
3. Contribute – add comments, photos and videos. Stand out from the crowd in a nice way. Don’t be weird!
4. Respond – to questions people have. Help others. Do this once a week minimum.
5. Suggest – quality links that you find that relate to the group.  Share, share, share.
6. Off Facebook – talk up your Facebook groups on your blog, LinkedIn (http://www.linkedin.com/in/ivanwalsh) and elsewhere.

Then Ask!

Here’s how you ask:

1. Open Notepad
2. Copy/paste your invite text. Don’t write it from scratch every time. Keep this on your desktop, so you don’t  have to go rooting around.
3. Choose someone you’ve helped, complimented etc (i.e. they’ll most likely know who you are)
4. Click Add as Friend
5. Click the Add a Personal Message link.
   
6. Personalize the message, “Hi David, this is Ivan from the Camtasia group, if you’d like to connect, that would be great. Ivan.”
7. Click Send Request.

And that’s it

How about you?

What do you do when you want to connect to someone on Facebook? What’s the worst mistake people make? Spelling your name wrong?

Carsten Mende explains how loan words are used in China and Japan. These are English words that are commonly used in everyday Chinese, (i.e. loaned) but may not translate correctly if taken literally. He looks at how the ‘Chinese and Japanese languages incorporate English terms and how they are used’ and gives suggestions on what to avoid when translating documentation into these languages.

Difference between English, Chinese and Japanese syllables

He starts by showing the different between how syllables are created in these languages. And as someone who has studied Chinese for a few years, it’s both fascinating and frustrating. Oranges and apples, so to speak.

Latin – allows ‘numerous variations for combining letters and the amount of syllables is extremely large. English has more than 11,000 syllables.

Chinese and Japanese is very different: Chinese (Mandarin) is written in characters; each reflects a syllable and not a single letter.

Adopting loan words in Chinese and Japanese

He shows three mechanisms for the adaptation of English words in both languages:

• Phonemic way
• Semantic way
• Adaptation without any transformation

For example: Coffee 咖啡 ka fei

Suggestions

He cautions that when translating or transferring into a foreign language, ‘even obvious things may shape up as something completely different. So you should always treat your customer attentively, take him seriously and be prepared to communicate in his mother tongue.’

Read Carsten Mende here

Opportunities

The quality of technical documentation in China is often very poor. It’s not for lack of trying, rather they lack experience technical writers and have had little exposure to international audiences.

For foreigners this represents a huge opportunity. Technical writers who can come to China and test the waters could do very well. The pay is increasing all the time and the cost of living significantly lower than elsewhere.

Fancy moving?

Taobao.com is the 11th most successful website in the world. It makes more money than most all US ecommerce sites, except Amazon, and this may be about to change. The way ecommerce works in China is different than in Europe and the US. Partly this is to do with low credit card penetration, complex delivery logistics and customer support.

How the Chinese Amazon.com works

Ecommerce is different in China for several reasons. Low credit card penetration, for example, means that Chinese buyers tend to be in the larger cities, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzen, Xian, Nanjing and Chongqing. Once you get outside these areas, credit card penetration tends to decline.

So, how do you get around this?

Simple. You pay with cash. Most ecommerce is China is cash on delivery. Here’s how it works:

• You order products online – but don’t pay for it.
• Chinese is mostly cash on delivery – credit cards are making inroads but with no credit history, it takes time.
• Credit cards are still relatively new. Interest rates are high and the approval process is very stringent. In many cities, you need someone to guarantee that you’ll pay of the card if you overdraw.
• Credit card adoption is further complicated as most people have no credit history. Many products are paid for in cash. It’s not unknown for new home-owners to pay 100% cash for a new house – they like the security of owing it now!
• Goods are delivered by motorbike couriers. These are a carried by bike or, or for high-end goods, secured in a steel holding at the back of the bike. Keeping the couriers honest is another headache. The salary of many couriers is often less than the goods they deliver. You can imagine what happens…
• When the goods arrive, you can (and are expected to) open the box and check the goods.
• Your signature is recorded, sometimes on a palm/mobile/tablet device.
• Later if you have problems, you can return the goods to the distributor.
• In many cases, returns are not accepted (e.g. savvy students are known to swap the hard drives and return a PC with less powerful parts). Similar things happen with jewellery and other high end products.

Taobao Key Details

• Established in 2003
• Located in Shenzhen, a special economic zone, it is one hour from Hong Kong.
• China’s largest Internet retail platform
• 75% of market share, according to iResearch.
• Platforms within Taobao include Alibaba (www.alibaba.com), an affiliate network in China and Koubei.com (www.koubei.com), China’s leading classified listing website.

Takeaways

• Credit card adoption is on the rise but not as accessible as in the west.
• Chinese web shoppers are very web savvy and will do intensive research before buying products.
• Chinese web shoppers use Taobao to compare prices in the high street, e.g. printout of specs from the web to help negotiate.
• Negotiating (i.e. haggling) is the norm in Asia. You’re expected to haggle and fight for a better price. Only westerns pay the sticker price.
• Taobao is now so popular it is considering high streets branches and partnerships to capitalize on its position.
• Consumer-to-consumer (C2C) trading accounted for US$2 billion turnover in Q1 2008.
• Plans to have 700 stores available to buyers for the launch of mall.taobao.com. Companies pay five percent of transaction value to Taobao if their outlet fails to sell more than US$133,333 a year. In addition, they have to pay a 5,000 to 15,000 yuan one-time deposit for Taobao to compensate shoppers in case of complaints.

Ecommerce Opportunities in China

• Upselling & cross-selling are not as common as in the west.
• Long-term relationships are not cultivated, e.g. most ecommerce retailers don’t request email addresses and if they do (it seems to me) don’t know how to leverage these.
• Sales people are not trained to help customers. Their role is more to accommodate the customer rather than look for up-selling opportunities etc. They don’t waste time on this as they assume you won’t come back, which is often the case.

Taobao v Amazon

Do you think Amazon poses a real threat to Taobao? Can US ecommerce sites make a profit in the China? What do you think?

April Dunford gives five great tips on how to market your web product to early adopters. She asks how can you blend marketing and product development to increase adoption, in particular by those who are likely to champion your product before it goes main-stream. Geoffrey Moore covered this in Crossing the Chasm and Inside the Tornado. Has anything changed since then?

5 Considerations when Marketing to Early Adopters

April highlights the key drivers that impact the adoption of a new product. Here are the five points she highlights:

1. Complexity – you need to make it simple to understand. In one sentence. Think elevator pitch. Complex new products don’t get adopted. Marketing can’t define it, sales can’t sell it. Clarify what it does and who wants it. Make product descriptions short. Avoid buzzwords, clichés and waffle. What does it do!
2. Compatibility – how does it fit in with the target customers’ product line? Support this with case studies, use cases and scenarios. Paint a picture. Help them see how it will work for them.
3. Advantage – how much does the new product improve upon existing offering (or doing nothing).  Express benefits in quantifiable terms. She advices not to say ‘your product is “faster” doesn’t mean as much as saying you can “improve production output by 200%.”’
4. Trialability – make it easy to take for a test run. Her suggestion is to make it easy for customers to sign up and get started – you can talk about payments later. Besides downloads, you can offer screencasts, flash demos and video.
5. Observability – develop outposts on Social Media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr where ‘fans’ can discuss your product and give their verdict. Be prepared these are not here to flatter you. But if you engage in the dialogue, you can discuss how your product is better value than rivals by going thru the pain points that get raised.

Others Considerations when Marketing to Early Adopters

What have we missed here? How do you get your products to market? What mistakes do people make when launching a new product?

Fire away below.

Gerry McGovern provides this week’s guest article. “You build a brand on the Web one click at a time. You destroy your brand by wasting your customers’ time. I am a customer of a number of banks. I judge these banks, at least partly, by the experience I have with them online. I used to really like the National Irish Bank experience. Then they ‘improved’ it, making it more secure. And this of course is the problem at the heart of security. You can make a process so secure that even the people for whom it is designed can’t use it without huge effort.”

Now, when I go to the National Irish Bank homepage I often get a ‘page not found’ error. Usually when I refresh the page that little Java icon appears. I enjoy spending time watching it swirl round and round. It reminds me of coffee. Then I get an ‘error on page’ message. I refresh again and I actually get to the homepage.

It used to be that it remembered my User ID. Not anymore. Now I have to go get it and paste it in, because it’s long and I can’t remember it. Then it requires my password, which I can remember.

Next I get to a page where I have to enter a special security number from a card they’ve sent me. It’s annoying and such a waste of time. It now takes me at least three times longer to get into my account. Once in, however, it’s a really excellent experience, well designed and intuitive.

Bank of Ireland, on the other hand, is easy to get into. However, the subsequent steps are really clunky. The National Irish Bank interface has a feeling that it was designed for human beings. The Bank of Ireland interface feels like it was designed for robots.

Whereas the National Irish Bank immediately shows me balance information for my main accounts (a top task), here’s what I have to do on Bank of Ireland to get such information: click on a link called ‘Accounts’; click on a link called ‘Select All Accounts’; select an account from a list; click on a different link called ‘Accounts’ (Yes, there are two links called ‘Accounts’); select ‘Transactions’. It’s a real pain, a big waste of time.

Halifax Ireland is positively primitive. You can’t even transfer money. This is a top task for sure and if in 2010 a bank won’t even allow you to transfer money online, then it loses a huge amount of credibility and trust. This isn’t usability. This isn’t interface design.

• This is branding.
• This is marketing.
• This is advertising.
• This is management.

And you know what?

I’ll bet senior management in all these banks could not care less about my online experience. In fact, I have rarely, if ever, met a senior manager with more than a passing interest in the Web. They think this stuff is technical – something you give to the IT department. Where customers spend their time is where you build your brand.

Organizations need to stop trying to use traditional advertising techniques to create false images. For an increasing number of customers, you are your website. It’s about time senior management woke up to that fact.

Gerry McGovern

Content management solutions: Gerry McGovern
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com

PS – Gerry raises some good points here, in particular how a company can destroy its own brand. Al Ries shows how you can avoid these mistakes by staying focused. It sounds simple, but it’s not easy. I rarely use the phrase ‘must read’ this if you haven’t read this book, get it now. Don’t take my word though, read the endorsement and you’ll see what I mean.

How do you define innovation? Graham Horton has translated BMW’s definition of innovation for those who don’t speak German. I (used to) speak a little German and hope to get the original translation from Graham.

How to Re-Define an Innovation Philosophy

Here is the BMW’s innovation philosophy:

“It is our job to give customers something they want, but they didn’t know they were looking for, and which they say they always wanted when they get it.”

http://grahamhorton.posterous.com/how-bmw-defines-innovation

While this is a bit wordy, you get the drift.

1. Give customers something they want
2. An experience they didn’t know they were looking for
3. Something they value when they get it

These three statements drive BMW’s vision. How would you distill these into something snappier and a little easier to remember?

I’ll kick it off.

“We build the dreams you haven’t dreamt of yet.”

A bit lame, but it’s a start.

Fire away below.

How would you define BMW’s innovation philosophy?

Justin Premick, Aweber, has the results of an experiment to determine the optimum length for the From line in emails. For those involve in writing, content development and web marketing, the results are interesting.

Typically length is a concern that comes up when discussing subject lines – how many characters you can fit in a subject before your subscribers’ email programs cut it off.

But the same thing applies to your “from” line; if it’s too long, subscribers won’t be able to read all of it while viewing their list of emails.

Observations

• In most webmail programs, it didn’t matter what operating system you were on.
• Hotmail was the exception in that it cuts off the “from” line a couple characters earlier if you’re on a Mac.
• Where the width of the “Sender” column could be adjusted (notably Mozilla Thunderbird), I used the default width. Users can obviously change this and so there’s no way to guarantee that the results of this test will hold true for every user.
• Email clients don’t all necessarily look at character counts for the cutoff; some may cut off after a certain number of pixels.
• Individual recipients may set different settings that cause more or fewer characters to appear in the space provided.

You can read more details of these results at: http://www.aweber.com

Gerry Mcgovern Success on the Web is not about making customers do what you want. It is about helping customers do what they want.

My Lenovo laptop has great battery life. The battery lasts for 650 thousand million years if I don’t turn it on, and for 65 thousand million years if I turn it on dimly lit. In fact, to save me so much battery life, it always starts in dimly lit mode. It’s wonderful. I can’t read anything but I’m saving lots of battery life. So, each time I want to use my Lenovo with battery I have to undim it. It wastes my time and mildly irritates me, but then that’s what great branding experiences are about.

Lenovo is not alone.

I have never ever had a laptop that came anywhere near its battery life claims (and I’ve had many laptops). I simply don’t trust laptop manufacturers to tell me the truth. As far as I’m concerned their advertising statements are akin to me saying that I have enough money to last me the rest of my life, assuming I don’t buy anything.

Are there others like me out there, who are becoming more and more immune to false and deceptive advertising and marketing? I think there are. A friend of mine recently said to me: “You know, this Sensodyne toothpaste actually works. It actually does what it says it does.” And I agreed with him. Sensodyne is a great toothpaste.

You might think I hate branding and marketing. Quite the opposite. I’m willing to be loyal; but you’ve got to earn my loyalty. I love Bose speakers; every speaker I buy is a Bose. I’m loyal to Vodafone because I find their customer service to be excellent.

I stick with Verio for web hosting. The staff at Marriott hotels must get special training, because I have always found them friendly in an unforced way and genuinely helpful. Treat me right, deliver quality at a good price, and I’ll stick with you.

But treat me like a sucker; try to trick and manipulate me and you will get my scorn and contempt. I believe I am part of a new generation of consumers. Think of us as intelligent strangers.

We no longer trust most brands anymore because they don’t deserve our trust. We are the ‘search, compare and verify’ crowd, and our numbers are growing. We are the reason the Web is such a success.

Do you think the Web is such a success because it’s a technology? Do you think it’s a success because it uses HTML? Because you can view it on a computer screen or on a mobile phone? Because it can be wired or wireless?

The Web is a success because it helps us find out more, because it helps us compare, because it gets us in touch with people like us. Because it allows us to share.

We are the Web.

The Web is the customer and the customer is the new organization.  Commercial organizations and governments need to realize that, with the coming of the Web, power has shifted to the organization of intelligent strangers. We’re only in the middle of the beginning of this revolution. It’s very exciting. You can make a buck on the Web by doing right by your customers.

Gerry McGovern

Read more from Gerry at: http://www.gerrymcgovern.com

Chris Brogan writes: Blogs are not traditional media, and bloggers are not journalists. Unless they are. But it’s not a requirement.

A blog is software. It’s something one puts up on the web to capture information, of whatever type one wants to put on there, and thus, if anyone tells you that you’re doing it wrong, that’s just silly. There aren’t very many wrong ways to do it (legal things like stealing from others might be something you could screw up, but otherwise). And yet.

If you’re going to blog seriously, consider the following:

• Consider the goals and value of your posts. Are you adding to a body of work? Are you blogging to educate, inform, deliver some value?
• Facts do matter. If you’re stating opinions, stress that they’re opinions. If you’re claiming a fact, try to cite it. (I tend to state mostly opinions).
• Remember that defamation is still an issue, potentially legal.
• You can always ask questions BEFORE you blog (novel, I know).
• Brevity matters. I know that I blog about this often. I just see several posts where one has to wade through to try and decipher the salient points (often my own).
• Disclosure is key. If you’re doing something to make money, if you have a business relationship with an organization that you’re writing about, if there’s anything that might potential change the way something is perceived were it be to be measured against what you wrote, consider that.
• Link when you’re mentioning other sites or information that has a link. It’s good manners. It’s the way the Web works. It’s more resources. Linking only to yourself says something about you (and it’s not flattering).
• Review the body of your work every 10 or so posts. Are you improving?
• Review the body of your work every 30 or so posts against the most recent. Are you repeating?
• Review the body of your work against 5 other blogs in your space. Are you an echo?
• Ask yourself WHY you’re posting what you’re posting. Pretend you’re the reader. Is this worth their time?
• What else could you be doing with your blog to add value to your core community?

There are lots of reasons to be blogging: capture your thoughts, share moments, build relationships, establish thought leadership, sell electric toothbrushes, whatever. None of them are especially wrong. But if you’re going to blog with the perspective that you are a professional, give it your best. Your audience deserves it.

About Chris Brogan

Chris Brogan is President of New Marketing Labs, a new media marketing agency, and home of the Inbound Marketing Summit conferences and Inbound Marketing Bootcamp educational events.

Article source: http://www.chrisbrogan.com/if-you-intend-to-blog-seriously/

One of the success stories on MySpace was Ashley Qualls, a savvy 17-year-old, who set up a shop selling backgrounds for fellow MySpacers. It became a huge hit and she was the first real star of the MySpace generation.

On Twitter, there hasn’t been the same thing. Granted there have been examples of stars using Twitter to raise their profile and use it in a productive way. See Guy KamaZaki (@guykawasaki) as a classic example. But he was a star anyway before Twitter.

The reason there have been no new stars on Twitter is this.

1. You can’t make money out of it directly.

You can do it indirectly, through raising your brand’s profile and maybe plugging products – but not in the same way as Adsense as shown above.

2. Twitter‘s community don’t need any add-ons or plug-ins to enhance their experience.

Of course, you could try to sell customized Twitter backgrounds (and some do) but these haven’t really taken off because

3. Twitter users tend to be slightly older than the MySpace generation.

Maybe this is one reason they don’t care too much about adding bling to their Twitter page.

4. There is no place to put ads or other affiliate products on your Twitter page.

You could shows references to products in your profile but it’s too obscure to make any real difference.

5. Twittering tends to be a 1 way street.

It’s not a community in the sense the facebook or MySpace is and because of this the opportunities to make relationships and cross-pollinate business ideas and marketing opportunities doesn’t really exist.

But here’s a thought!

If you can show people how to make money while ‘inside’ Twitter – and not clicking through to other sites – you stand a very good chance of becoming the first real Twitter star.

Let me know what you think.

You can follow me on Twitter @ivanwalsh.

FYI: Aldian Prakoso discusses this example of successful long tail niche: Free MySpace Layout for Teenage Girls.

Aldian mentions that ”I learned that a 17-year-old high school drop-out girl makes $70K a month from AdSense revenue. Ashley Qualls is a 17-year-old high school dropout, home owner and millionaire. She makes $70,000.00 a month in Google AdSense revenue with her website.” http://aldianprakoso.com/long-tail-niche-free-myspace-layout-for-teenage-girls/